De la Espriella wins 1st round of Colombia’s presidential election – Colombia News

Far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella won the first round of Colombia’s presidential election and will face leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda in a run-off vote on June 21, according to the preliminary count.

With 99% of the votes counted, De la Espriella received the support of 43.7% of Colombia’s voters.

Cepeda received 40.9% of the votes and defeated the establishment candidate.

Support for far-right Senator Paloma Valencia, who had been polled as De la Espriella’s immediate contender, imploded. The Uribista candidate received less than 7% of the votes.

Liberal candidates Sergio Fajardo and Claudia Lopez received 4% and 1% of the votes respectively.

First round results (99% counted)

The preliminary results announced on Sunday were nothing like the election polls that showed a significant advance for Cepeda for months.

According to election observers, Sunday’s vote occurred without major security incidents that could have impeded voting.

The NGO Electoral Observation Mission (MOE), which has monitored election for decades, received more than 370 complaints about irregularities and alleged fraud in the month leading up to the vote.

Almost 30% of the complaints received on the day of the first round were about political propaganda in or near the 13,489 polling stations that had been set up by the National Registry throughout the country.

Additional complaints are expected to come in through the political parties, who deployed some 350,000 electoral witnesses to secure free and fair elections.

The Historic Pact, the political party of Cepeda and President Gustavo Petro, has been raising the alarm about security flaws in the software that processes the tally sheets and calculates the preliminary outcome.

Opponents of Petro have filed multiple complaints about the president’s alleged meddling in the elections, which is banned in Colombia.

The final round of this year’s election is set for June 21.

The newly elected president is expected to take office on June 7.